4 KEY SOURCES IN CREATING A SUCCESSFUL BUYERS PERSONA

In our last post we explained how Buyer Personas are a crucial piece of the success of any Inbound Marketing Strategy. With the underlying objective of an Inbound strategy being to build personal relationships with prospect/customer, it's essential to know and understand who you are dealing with.

Below, are four key sources a company can use to mine information about their persona. The ideas within each source are just ideas, personalize them to your specific company and industry.

1. THE PERSONA INTERVIEW

Draw up a questionnaire and conduct interviews by phone, online, in person with clients and prospects. Find out aspects of their life like their typical day, job, learning process, social media use, where they search for information, challenges they face etc... The more information the better. Our next post will outline tips and tricks for creating an effective persona interview.

2. COMAPANY TRENDS AND DATA

Use company data to see who your actual leads and customers are. Are there any trends concerning age, gender, location, marital status etc... anything you can draw from existing data your company has on these individuals? The buying journey of these clients, if they are online/instore? How they interact with your current content (ie: how receptive are current customers to discount coupons, new releases, promotions online and in-store)

3. FORMS

Create forms for your website to capture information concerning prospects/clients. When you are offering value to these individuals, ask them in return to provide certain information that will help update personas. Refining persona is a never ending process, this information is valuable so keep at it.

4. EMPLOYEE INPUT

The more viewpoints you have on clients/prospects the better, so ask each department. For example,

Customer Service - who primarily contacts customer service (age/gender/etc...). Who are loyal clients and why are they loyal? What sorts of issues do customers seem to have. How do customers primarily contact customer service.

Sales - Who are the sales leads and what are their pain point are. What is a typical customers experience through buying journey. What are main reasons customers are buying and what are type of client they are most likely to close? A company's sales teams are a goldmine for information!

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Don't forget to download the sources cheat sheet! Keep it handy when working on your buyer persona.

In our next posts, we will discuss "HOW TO" create a persona interview.

HOW TO CREATE A PERSONA INTERVIEW

YOU'VE GOT A BUYER PERSONA, NOW WHAT?

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